It wouldn’t do to let one of my childhood heroes pass on without acknowledging his amazing contribution to humanity—or the way he dealt with the fame that came with it. I never met Neil Armstrong. I saw him on television, of course, and that was a corker: his first step on the moon, broadcast live in 1969, which I viewed as a breathless seven-year-old. Beyond that, the closest I came was a visit to the museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio, that bears his name. I stopped on my way home from a business trip—it’s just off I-75 about an hour north of Dayton. Of course, Armstrong wasn’t there, and I doubt he rarely visited. Public acclaim wasn’t his style. I’m surprised he agreed to lend his name to the place. So I settled for a peek at photos, childhood memorabilia, videos, a few spacesuits and uniforms, and the Gemini 8 space capsule in which he and Dave Scott nearly died in 1966. My visit came not long after I read Armstrong’s biography, First Man, by James R. Hansen. Thus my connection to Armstrong was as it is today—tenuous at best. Among the many articles written in the wake of Armstrong’s death on Aug. 24 was a blog by author Margaret Dean Lazarus. She lamented the stories that claimed Armstrong was a shy man. In fact, he didn’t hesitate to speak his mind, as we saw when President Obama cancelled Project Constellation, NASA’s back-to-the-moon program, in 2010. He was neither insecure nor arrogant—merely confident in his abilities (like most test pilots) and in those of the people he worked with (like most engineers). Armstrong knew the accomplishments for which he was lauded relied heavily upon a vast team of experts. In his view, it wasn’t right nor accurate to glory in the kudos heaped upon him after Apollo 11. Armstrong practiced quiet leadership. He sought consensus when he could, was direct when he had to be, and had no interest in pretense or gamesmanship. I think a lot of people striving to lead, or trying to connect with their audiences, could learn a lot from Armstrong. He won the right to speak his mind by speaking it when he had something to say, and always with honesty. “His time hugging the corners of fame made him seem even more admirable as a man who refused to sell himself or his legacy out, no matter what temptations were available in a celebrity-crazed culture” wrote Gene Seymour in a CNN blog. “For one spellbinding week 43 summers ago, Neil Armstrong did something that once seemed unimaginable. Since then, he lived his life in a way that now seems improbable.”

Some years ago, I had the good fortune to work alongside talented author Joseph Heywood. We both served in public relations for a large company. I recall a day when several of us were on coffee break—such luxuries were possible once upon a time—and we were grousing about the latest boneheaded move by a since-forgotten journalist. (Reporters, of course, do this about PR people, as did I in my journalism days. It seems I’m an equal-opportunity whiner.) While Joe agreed with our complaints, he made a pointed comment that stuck with me ever since: “Thank God for a free press.” Indeed. And that’s why I’m worried today. The Pew Research Center released a survey that showed a significant decline in credibility ratings of major news organizations. In the last decade alone, the public’s confidence in news coverage has declined on average from 71 percent positive believability to a tepid 56 percent. Local TV news continues to be the most believable, though that group reaches only 65 percent. Why the fall-off? The reasons are legion. News coverage is anemic and often inaccurate due to slashed budgets and staffs. Marketing and entertainment wield too much influence on the reporting side. Recent examples of unethical behavior have tarnished the profession. And on and on…. What bothers me a great deal is the way some institutions, particularly political ones, are using the plight of the Fourth Estate to further weaken its role. A few weeks back, I blogged about the push by the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns to review quotes before publication—and the appalling fact that some news organizations had agreed to allow it. Thankfully, a number of them have since backed away. Yet we read about it again, this time in relation to Vice President Joe Biden. As his many gaffes have shown, Mr. Biden is his own worst enemy. Apparently his handlers agree. Check out this reference in an article by Jonathan Martin at Politico.com:"[R]eporters were hustled out of retail campaign stops in diners and other intimate settings, aides tried to edit media pool reports for any potential landmines that could be seized on by Republicans and even hovered at close range to eavesdrop on journalists’ conversations with attendees at Biden rallies." This strikes me as the kind of stuff one might have seen in the days of Communist Russia. As the Fourth Estate struggles through an unprecedented time of change, the role of public relations in helping reporters get the right information to report accurately and objectively is more important than ever. Instances like the Biden situation only serve to slowly strangle one of our nation’s basic freedoms. We must hold journalists to the highest ethical standards. Same for those who work with them.

Sean Williams, communicator extraordinaire at CommunicationAMMO, posed an interesting question on his blog this week: Can a company’s or industry’s reputation become so bad that it’s beyond rescue? Williams points to the banking and financial industries, which are firmly typecast by politicians as the collective Darth Vader of our economic woes. Make no mistake, some of that negative reputation is deserved. But assuming wiser heads have begun to prevail in those industries, how does one restore a positive standing in the public view? Crisis communicators embrace such a challenge, creating strong messages and intricate strategies to build new relationships with stakeholders and, hopefully, start to influence perceptions. That’s important work. But I contend that something else needs to happen first: a change in behavior. Consider another industry that often shares (right or wrong) the scum-and-villainy descriptor—the pharmaceutical industry. For decades, drug companies have been accused of doing shifty things. A decade ago, the industry adopted a voluntary code of conduct that, along with tighter regulatory and reporting rules, aimed to stop questionable activities and inappropriate relationships. Yet the negative perceptions remain. Why? Some of it is residual. Some of it is the complexity of the industry’s messages. Some of it, sadly, is a failure to walk the talk, or being patient enough to let a change in behavior bear fruit. So what's to be done? Let’s take a look at the industry’s leading company, Pfizer Inc. (Full disclosure: I worked for Pfizer and legacy companies for nearly 25 years.) In 2009, the pharmaceutical giant was hit with what was then the biggest criminal fine in U.S. history—a stunning $2.3 billion, levied against subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn, for illegal marketing practices. (As of July of this year, that dubious honor is held by GlaxoSmithKline, with a $3 billion fine.) “It’s another step in the administration’s ongoing effort to prosecute any individual or organization that tries to rip off health care consumers and the federal government,” said Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. Pfizer took this smackdown to heart. Among its actions in the wake of the settlement was a stepped-up compliance effort affecting every level of the organization and overseen by a corporate compliance officer. Training, auditing, communication and enforcement are elements of the program. The company states that “the first and foremost responsibility of each employee around the world at Pfizer is to abide by the company's policies on business conduct. Each employee must comply not only with the letter of these policies, but also with their spirit.” Fast-forward to last week, when Pfizer was fined again, this time over allegations that its foreign subsidiaries were involved in bribery. While this levy, $60 million, pales in comparison to the 2009 hit, it’s another black eye for the company. Or is it? I noticed a different tone in the announcement this time. According to news accounts, the fine was reduced and criminal charges waived because Pfizer itself alerted authorities to the infractions. In fact, the company discovered and reported them back in 2004, conducting its own investigation, keeping authorities informed and cooperating fully with investigators from the Securities & Exchange Commission and the Justice Department. Pfizer could have tried to hide the misdoings. It could have played dumb and left it to regulators to discover (or fail to discover) the infractions. But Pfizer did the right thing. It found some foreign subsidiaries doing wrong, reported it and accepted the consequences. True, this one instance won’t change the anti-pharma mindset. The industry has much work to do, and much soul-searching, to make that happen. But it’s a step in the right direction, one that I hope Pfizer continues and that its peers emulate. There isn’t a message point in the world that can accomplish more than the simple act of doing the right thing.

A few months ago, I posted a blog about public relations’ own reputation issues, some of which are self-made due to the graying of ethical behavior. Sadly, we’re seeing the same thing happen in journalism. This week it was Jonah Lehrer, a 31-year-old science writer at The New Yorker and author of the best-selling book, “Imagine: How Creativity Works.” Lehrer resigned after admitting he made up quotes for singer Bob Dylan in “Imagine.” This was after Lehrer was caught recycling his blog posts from other publications. The once-rising star is now jobless and humiliated, and his popular book is being yanked from shelves by the publisher. Of course, there are plenty of these black eyes in the profession’s history, going back to the days of “yellow journalism” in the late 1800s, where misleading headlines and hyperbole were de riguer. More recently, we have The New York Times’ Jayson Blair and TheWashington Post’s Janet Cooke, both of whom admitted making up stories—in Cooke’s case, a story that earned a Pulitzer Prize. And just since this past Memorial Day: -- Reporter Paresh Jha was fired by the New Canaan (Conn.) News for alleged fabrications in up to 25 stories; -- Intern Liane Membis got broomed by The Wall Street Journal after accusations of making up sources; -- Chicago-area news organization Pioneer Press Publications shed photographer Tamara Bell after she admitted to 22 made-up quotes in photo essays; -- The Chicago Tribune fired third-party news provider Journatic after elements of a sports story were found to be either plagiarized or made up. In an industry that builds itself on a reputation of truth and accuracy, fabrication is more than just an error in judgment; it shatters the very foundations of journalism. Indeed, a recent Gallup poll revealed that the public’s confidence in both TV and print news is at an all-time low. It’s easy—and correct—to blame the individuals. They chose to act as they did and should be held accountable. But journalism does itself a great disservice if it stops there. These are examples of fundamental problems in the profession. News media are so caught up in the 24/7 competitive news cycle that speed and quantity have outstripped accuracy. Compounding this is ongoing cutbacks in newsrooms that have sent veteran reporters packing, dismissed copy editing and fact checking, and dumped more and more responsibility on less-experienced staffers.The New York Times columnist David Carr lamented the lack of urgency among journalists to address these problems. “We think of ourselves as doing the People’s work, and write off lapses in ethics and practices as potholes on the way to a Greater Truth,” he wrote. Nineteenth-century British writer Thomas Carlyle called journalism “the Fourth Estate,” a non-governmental institution that wields great influence on society. It seems that institution is being tainted with the same unethical brush with which it so often paints the other estates. And our civilization is that much darker, that much weaker, because of it.